Parallelism
by liltrix
Summary: It was funny how they keep running into each other now, after everything is already over. Stiles/Allison. Oneshot.


**A/N: So I have loved the idea of a deeper Stiles/Allison friendship since the beginning, but recently I've started shipping them romantically and somehow this happened. I am in dire need of more scenes with them next season.**

**This fic goes back and forth in between limited third person of both Stiles and Allison. (Oh, and by the way, there is suggested Scott/Isaac in this: I didn't want Scott to be heartbroken!) **

* * *

They had always kind of been like separate parallel lines, aware of the other and never diverging, but apparently someone broke the laws of mathematics because now they are perpendicular to each other, entwining and crossing paths.

It starts after the whole kanima fiasco.

Stiles finds Allison on the bench outside of school, and it reminds him of when he had been a messenger between her and Scott, running and out of breath. A lot has changed since then. Allison has changed; but then, so has he.

He stops in the courtyard for a little bit, just looking at her. She doesn't notice him. She looks forlorn, and deep in thought. It is, Stiles realizes, sad to see her like this. He remembers when she spent most of the time looking at ease and happy and in love. Now she always looks depressed and tired and rather as if she has given up.

Stiles, after a moment of hesitation, walks over to her and sits down. She doesn't even seem to notice, and he wonders if in fact she _hasn't _noticed, until she speaks and he jumps in surprise.

"Does the pain ever go away?" she asks, her voice soft and strained and empty.

His heart aches a little, and he stares at the ground, his mind flowing with old memories of warmth and happiness, when he had two parents instead of one. "Not really," he says, turning to her, his eyes full of compassion. "But it gets easier to deal with. I promise." Allison looks at him then, biting her lip; she seems nearly ready to break down, but then she swallows and bottles it up like she always does and puts her mask back on.

She gives an almost imperceptible nod, stands up, and walks away.

* * *

They don't even see each other again until a week later. Allison spots Stiles in the library studying during their free period, looking as if he is not concentrating. She walks slowly at first, and then breaks into a confident stride, not really sure why she's even going over to him in the first place.

When she moves the chair next to him, he turns, startled. Allison pulls her book bag off her shoulder, sets it on the table, and smiles at him, knowing it probably isn't reaching her eyes; she is trying to appear friendly but is sure it's coming off strained.

"Hey," she says.

"Hey," Stiles returns, mirroring the smile. He closes his book with a sigh, and neither of them talks for a minute.

"So, um… how are you?" Allison asks, and the question is almost funny because how is anyone at this point?

Stiles shrugs. "Okay, I guess. You?"

Allison gives a bitter laugh. "Okay as I can be."

He deliberates before asking, "You… haven't really been seeing Scott around much?"

She furrows her brow, wringing her hands together out of nervous habit. It was a habit she was getting back into, lately. "No, I… well, you know we broke up. I just…" Allison breaks off and then leans back into her chair. "I just can't deal with this stuff anymore, you know? It's… too much."

"Trust me, I know," Stiles says. "And, you're a skilled and trained _hunter_; try being a useless human when all of this was going down."

"You're not useless, Stiles," Allison says, her expression serious, her words sincere. She truly does believe this. Stiles is not useless. He figures things out, and he notices things. He is probably the smartest out of all of them, maybe even including Lydia, given the situation.

But his face tells her that he doesn't believe her, and he doesn't answer, looking away and staring at the table.

"Sometimes I _hate _myself," Allison says quietly, her voice hard, her hands balled up into fists, her mind racing back to arrows and kidnappings and pleas for her to just stop. "For everything I did. I really do… I hate myself."

Stiles is silent for a little bit. "Yeah, I know the feeling."

* * *

After class on a particularly rainy day, Allison stops Stiles on the way out the door. She holds a book out to him.

"Can you give this back to Scott?" she asks, a sheepish smile on her face. "He must have left it one time when we were studying together. Not that we did much studying…"

Stiles raises his eyebrows and takes the book. "_Yeah_, too much information there."

Allison laughs a little, and it sounds sad but it still reminds Stiles of the way she used to be. They walk out of the classroom together, side by side. For some reason, Stiles finds comfort in this silence that they shared. They don't really have to say anything, but the companionship is still there. He is surprised he feels this way, because in reality, he doesn't actually_ know_ Allison that well. Glancing over at her, he wonders what she's thinking. She doesn't say much these days.

Her eyes have a faraway look again, and she suddenly looks small as she clutches her books to her chest, her soft, brown curls shielding most of her face. It's weird, because Allison Argent never looks _small_. She always had seemed so impenetrable. Stiles is filled with the sudden and startling urge to hug her and tell her everything will be okay. In fact, it was so startling that he actually stops in the hallway, thrown off by this abrupt swing in emotion.

Allison stops as well, looking back at him in confusion, her eyebrows pushed together. "Um, Stiles? Are you coming?"

He snaps out of it and shakes his head a little. "Uh- yeah. Yeah, I'm coming."

* * *

They get paired for an English project, by chance, and Allison finds the whole thing a little ironic. They seem to keep running into each other, now, _after _she had been involved with the whole werewolf business. But since she and Scott are done (at least, for the moment, even though she keeps telling herself they're done for good), she has been completely cut off from anything mystical and crazy and she wants to keep it that way.

The people in her English class shift around as they get with their assigned partner, and Allison gets up and does the same. She finds that Stiles must have been finding the situation funny also, because he grins lopsidedly up at her as she approaches his table and says, "You'd think we wouldn't really be seeing much of each other anymore, wouldn't you?"

"I know," she agrees as she sits down. "I told Scott I didn't believe in fate, but this is getting a little freaky."

They're handed a slip of paper by the teacher. The project, apparently, was to research an author and develop a correlation between the author's life and how it may have influenced the author's work.

Stiles takes the paper and opens it up. He immediately slaps his hand to his forehead and drags it over his face, groaning. "You have _got _to be kidding me," he says.

"What?" Allison asks, taking the paper from him.

"Guy Endore."

She shrugs.

"He wrote the most well-known book in literature about _werewolves_. 'The Werewolf of Paris'."

Allison gapes at him, and then snorts in laughter. "We have the weirdest luck. Wow." She shakes her head in amazement, and then a thought occurs to her. "Wait, Stiles, how did you even know that?"

"I did a lot of research on werewolves when Scott first… well, you know, was turned," Stiles explains. "I came across all kinds of things. Mainly websites of people claiming to have seen werewolves, stuff like that. Oh, and also, way too much on Remus Lupin."

"Who?"

Stiles turns to fully look at her then, disbelief clear on his face. "Um, you did not just ask me that. Harry Potter? You know, that one insanely popular book series on magic and journeys and a kid with a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt? Come _on_, Allison."

"Wha- I knew that!" Allison protests, affronted. "Well. Okay, I didn't. I read the first Harry Potter book so long ago, and then I just kind of stopped reading them."

"Why would you stop _reading-_" Stiles stops and shakes his head at her, as if he can't even process any of this and Allison bites her lip to keep from smiling because his reaction is kind of amusing. "I can't even handle you right now."

"Whatever, nerd," she says, grinning for real now, opening her copy of the book the AP English class was currently collectively reading.

"If I'm a nerd because I appreciate fine literature," Stiles says, also opening his book, "then a nerd I'll be."

Allison just snickers softly, picking up her place in the book, all while realizing that this is the first time she's laughed honestly in weeks.

* * *

They meet together two times in order to work on the English project. The first time is after school on a weekday, and they go over to Allison's house in Stiles' jeep. Stiles is glad they don't go to his house first; he knows he at least wouldn't want to bring her to his room, though he's not sure why: it could be the fact that the only time he ever even _had _a girl in his room was that one time Lydia was there, crying, before magically resurrecting her dead boyfriend out of the sheer power of love, and yeah, he tries not to think about that too much.

They work in her dining room. Allison sits very near him at the table, her arm brushing his every so often as she types in something else to Google. He flinches involuntarily at her touch, feeling his skin tingle. But… why would his skin be tingling? That's never a good sign. He looks at her sideways. She brushes some loose wave behind her ear, her head in her hand. She's talking about something related to Guy Endore's work as an activist, but he isn't really paying attention because she's so close to him that he can actually _smell _her. The scent was similar to flowers, but Stiles isn't sure what kind; it was sweet, so maybe honeysuckle or jasmine-

"Stiles?"

He breaks out of his reverie with a start, looking at her quickly. She is staring at him with one eyebrow raised.

"I- uh, I- yeah that sounds good!" Stiles stammers, putting his hand behind his head in his classic self-conscious gesture.

"You think the fact that there was a lack of evidence in a horrible murder case Endore was trying to help out with sounds _good_?" Allison asks, sounding bemused.

"Oh, yeah- I mean, it sounds good that he… was helping! Obviously," Stiles says, nodding, trying to casually put his arms on the table but he misses so he ends up sort of comically leaning on it with his elbow.

"O_kay_…" Allison says, raising her eyebrows and giving him a look as if he was crazy (which he probably was because he knows he _feels _crazy), before turning back to the computer screen.

Stiles sighs, and ends up being unable to focus for the rest of the research session.

* * *

The second time they work on their English project together is later in the week; it is at Stiles' house this time and they stay in the kitchen with the laptop.

Allison starts out ready to tackle more topics on Endore and attempt to correlate his work with his life, while Stiles gets increasingly more distracted. He looks out the window frequently and he even starts making paper cranes. She huffs and turns to him, crossing her arms on the table.

"You know, I'd really appreciate if you'd help me out here," Allison says, an annoyed edge to her voice.

Stiles whips his head around, eyebrows raised. "What? Oh- sorry. But we've already researched as much as we can on this Endore guy." He laughs at himself. "See what I did there- Endore _guy_, Guy Endore… no…? O_kay_…"

Allison gives him a withering look. Then she sighs and closes the laptop. "Well… I guess you're right," she agrees reluctantly.

They sit there for a moment, before Stiles suddenly asks her with a grin, "Hey, want to do something that's actually fun?"

And so this is how ten minutes later Allison finds herself in the midst of a game of Call of Duty. They're playing in zombie mode with a split-screen and Allison gets so wrapped up into it that she sort of forgets Stiles is playing it right next to her.

"Ha!" she barks as she takes down several more zombies, brandishing her controller like a weapon.

Eventually the score limit is reached, and Allison sits back down on the sofa, turning when she realizes Stiles is staring at her.

"What?" she asks, her voice quizzical.

"Nothing! It's just, you're really good at this game," he says. "I mean, I'm pretty sure you're better than I am already and I've had it for years."

"It's stress relieving," Allison says defensively.

"No! I mean, it's not a bad thing," Stiles adds on. "It's kind of awesome, actually."

She turns to him then; he's looking at her in a funny way, his eyes full of something Allison can't place, and for some reason her heart starts beating faster and she feels undeniably self-conscious. His arm is draped over the back of the couch so he's mostly facing her, and Allison is suddenly very aware of the fact that their legs are touching. She can't seem to focus on his eyes, and instead finds her attention drifting to his beauty marks, the curve of his jaw, the pale skin of his face and neck, and the bit of collarbone his slightly open button-down shirt was revealing. Swallowing hard, Allison looks away tersely.

"Uh," she mumbles, her voice sounding breathless to her own ears. She gets up. "I should go-"

"Yeah," Stiles says quickly, getting up along with her.

He sees her out, and she says she wants to walk home (it's a short distance), trying not to analyze why she feels she shouldn't be around him at right then.

* * *

The moment during the game of Call of Duty was… _weird_, but Stiles pushes it to the back of his mind and he and Allison act like it didn't happen.

He runs into her a lot more at school, now; they say hi while passing through the halls, or go out of their way to talk to the other during break. In fact, it gets to the point when Scott notices.

"Been seeing Allison a lot lately?" Scott asks him while putting away his lacrosse gear. Stiles tries to figure what he's thinking by the tone of his voice, but it's unreadable. If anything, he just sounds a bit bewildered.

"I guess," Stiles says slowly. "We got paired to work on an English project together."

"You seem … close now."

Stiles furrows his brow and shrugs. "Well, not really. Kind of." He looks at Scott, feeling bad all of a sudden. "I'm… I'm sorry, man, I probably shouldn't-"

"What? No," Scott says, shutting the locker. "If you guys are better friends, I'm… I'm happy about it." He sounds honest, though a bit cautious, and Stiles is relieved.

But he's only relieved for a second because he has the nagging thought in the back of his mind that a part of him might be interested in being more than friends.

He promptly ignores that thought and denies it to the best of his abilities.

* * *

"Okay, you are _not _keeping that skirt: what era are we_ in_, the 70's?"

Allison sighs at Lydia's reprimands, and puts down the skirt she'd been holding on her bed. They had just gone shopping and were currently in Allison's room cleaning out and moving things into her closet at request (or, rather, insistence) by Lydia. Allison knows that getting her mind on something light is Lydia's intention, and she is grateful for the gesture, but she can't help but think about when she had so ferociously ripped apart the majority of her wardrobe after Gerard's emotional manipulation. It also reminds her of the last time she had spoken to her mother, when she and Lydia had been deciding on what to wear for the party. Allison's chest constricts painfully at the memory, and she tries to focus instead on the new clothing spread out amongst the old that she didn't destroy.

New clothing. Symbolic of a new beginning.

Lydia tucks her hair behind her ear and crosses her arms, studying the mess of clothes splayed across the bed. She gives a sudden gasp and exclaims, "You didn't tell me you had this shirt! I have the same one in mauve." Holding it up, she goes to the mirror above Allison's armoire and holds it over herself. "This color actually suits my complexion better than mine, though," she muses. "Maybe we should…"

Then she trails off into silence, and Allison glances over at her, now picking through some of the new clothes, holding up a woolen blue cardigan she'd gotten fifty percent off. "Lydia?" she asks.

Lydia turns around, an eyebrow raised. "Why do you have a guide to Call of Duty sitting on your dresser table?"

Allison drops the cardigan, and feels a bit flustered for a reason she can't explain. "Oh," she says, and shrugs, trying to appear nonchalant. "I just wanted to understand the game better. Um. I played it with Stiles the other day and-"

Lydia is looking at her as if she's grown another head. "You played it with _Stiles_? When would you have done that?"

"I- we're just working on an English project together and we got bored, it's _nothing-_" Allison shakes her head and laughs as she tosses the cardigan onto the bed and picks up a silk shawl, unable to meet Lydia's eye. "It's not like it means anything."

Lydia walks over to her slowly. "I didn't ask if it meant anything, did I?"

Allison pauses and then looks at her and sees Lydia is trying not to smirk. She scowls. "Ha ha," Allison says sarcastically. "Can we just get back to this now, please?"

"Hey, if Stiles is getting over me, I'm glad," Lydia says, shrugging. "Or maybe he already has. Yeah, he probably _has_ if you two are snuggling up on the sofa playing war games, feeding each other bits of popcorn and calling each other nerdy nicknames and getting all close and-"

Lydia stops abruptly when Allison throws the shawl at her face.

* * *

To Stiles' dismay, the awkward, palpable tension comes back full force the day before they're supposed to turn in their English presentation.

He is standing by his locker during passing time, putting books away, when Allison comes up to him and holds out a manila folder.

"This is the rest of the research I compiled," she says, a bright tone to her voice that sounds a little false. "I figured you can just merge it with any side studying you did, and put it the whole thing together."

Stiles takes it and peers at her questioningly. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah!" Allison smiles, nodding. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be? I'm-"

He never finds out what she is, though, because at that exact moment a passing student bumps into her, causing her to stumble forward violently and press herself into him.

For a second, Stiles forgets about everything and everyone in the hallway and can only focus on Allison in front of him: or rather, not focus, because he is taking in all of her at once and his brain has become a muddled mess. He is holding her steady by the arms, and she leans her head back from where it landed on his shoulder to look at him. Her face is flushed and her mouth is open; Stiles' gaze goes to her lips, the pink fullness of them drawing him in like an anchor to the bottom of the ocean. Her brown hair, set in a braid to the side of her head, is a little disarrayed with pieces falling out of it, and there is one bit of her hair that has landed in her face in between her eyes and it is very frustratingly endearing. His heart is thudding loud, the blood pumping throughout his body in a sort of rousing heat. She looks bewildered and distressed but _beautiful _and all Stiles can think of is that he really, really wants to kiss her.

This thought snaps him out of it though, and he gently pushes her away and she immediately responds by jumping back, her face even redder.

"Uh- I have to go!" she says, her voice a bit unnaturally loud.

"Yeah, yeah, me too," Stiles says, hastily. "Can't be late to Calculus, derivatives are just so exciting!" They stand there for a painful beat, and then they quickly part from each other. Stiles hurries down the opposite direction of the hall, even though the quickest route to his next class is the other way.

* * *

_Oh god. Oh god oh god-_

Allison runs this mantra though her head the rest of the school day after what happened but didn't happen between Stiles and her in the hallway.

She doesn't really want to think about what didn't happen.

She _really _doesn't want to think about what she had wanted to happen.

There is still a hollow pang in her chest whenever she thinks of Scott, and an itch in her fingers to grab his hand whenever she passes him at school. They meet eyes sometimes, and she allows herself to give him a small smile, but she's sure it always comes out looking sad.

So now, why is there a bubbly warmth that is taking place of that hollow pang because of _Stiles_, of all people?

It's not as if she never thought Stiles was attractive, in a sort of subjective, impersonal way. But he always seemed so… unattainable. And distant, like he has a constant barrier up. You wouldn't think it, at first: he's so loud and sarcastic and hyperactive and unable to keep his attention on one thing for very long. Yet when you see who he's actually _close_ to… well, there's really only Scott and, Allison supposes, his father. She's realized he is a private person, and even though it's by choice, he gives off an aura of loneliness. Perhaps this is a factor in what draws her to him: he is relatable, because Allison knows what it's like to feel alone.

However, he's also incredibly intelligent and funny. He makes her laugh, and causes her to feel sort of happy and she can't even remember the last time she's felt happiness, not since her mother died.

She can't stop thinking about how, when Lydia had found that Call of Duty guide, she had been so defensive over the fact that _of course it didn't mean anything_. But now the voice in the back of Allison's head is telling her that she hadn't been trying to reassure Lydia.

She had been trying to reassure herself.

* * *

Stiles doesn't see Scott as much as he used to (and considering he pretty much used to see Scott all of the time, it makes a difference in his daily life). He notices that Scott is around Isaac a lot.

He isn't exactly jealous. Instead, he feels a sort of resigned sadness because of it, but at the same time, he feels a lingering dread for an entirely different reason.

And that reason is the horrifying, terrible, absolutely crazy fact that he very well might be harboring some newly acquired feelings for said best friend's ex-girlfriend.

The ex-girlfriend that said best friend found an anchor in to calm his werewolf viciousness.

The ex-girlfriend that said best friend said he was in love with.

The ex-girlfriend that said best friend believes is fated to be with him.

Yeah. This really isn't good. At all. It's almost as if Scott's recent negligence of Stiles is made up for by the fact that Stiles feels so damn guilty whenever he sees him.

It's strange, because Stiles had wrapped himself up in his love of Lydia for so long that feeling anything for anyone else had never really occurred to him. He's not stupid, though; he knows that clinging onto this false hope that one day Lydia would reciprocate his affection was always a sort of mechanism to keep away pain and grief. It was as if no matter what happened, Stiles would at least have his love of Lydia to hang on to, and to focus on.

He's tried to let go before, and it had always been in vain; now he fears it might actually be easy and that thought scares him.

But this whole thing mostly scares Stiles because he doesn't want to lose Scott.

Stiles falls into step alongside Scott on the way to the locker room after school; Scott grins at him in greeting but he looks lost in thought.

"What's up?" Stiles asks curiously, narrowly dodging a rushing passerby, turning to watch them navigate through the throngs of teenagers, eager to get home after a long day at school.

"I'm not really sure if I still believe in fate anymore."

Stiles quickly pivots back to Scott at that. "What do you mean?"

Scott sighs and half-shrugs. "Well, I'd said to Allison before that we would always come back to each other, but… I guess I'm not certain about that now."

Stiles' heart drops and he blanches. Did Scott suspect something? And what was there to suspect when nothing had even happened? "Why- what's making you say this?"

"It's been nearly a month and a half, and…" Scott stops in the middle of the hallway, and Stiles stops with him. "I guess I'm just confused about my own feelings. At first, I wasn't exactly sad as much as I was confident that we'd be together again soon. It just seemed like a sure thing. But now, I don't know. I mean, I'll always love her, but- what if I start to feel something for someone else? Is that- is that bad? Because-"

"No, that's great!" Stiles interjects, regretting it immediately when Scott gives him a funny look. "Uh, I mean- that's_ normal_." They start to walk together again, side by side, comfortable in the familiarity. "Scott, sometimes feelings develop, sometimes they change, sometimes they fade away. Sometimes… sometimes they come out of the blue and hit you so unexpectedly you wonder what the hell you're doing and how you managed to end up so con_fused _but still sort of really amazed that it even happened at all-"

Scott raises an eyebrow. "Who are we talking about here?"

Stiles flushes a little and shakes his head. "That's unimportant. The _point _is… is that yes, that's okay. But it's also okay to still love Allison. And if you want to be with her again…" He bites his lip and swallows, trying to ignore the Allison that keeps reappearing in his mind, the Allison that laughs and jokes and has fun with _him_. "Then that's fine, too. I'm totally supportive of that." He meets Scott's gaze. "I just want you to be happy, man." And he means it. He has spent the last week agonizing that falling for Allison would be the absolute worst possible scenario, and he would never allow himself to put his own feelings first. He couldn't.

Scott smiles and claps him on the shoulder, his hand strong and reassuring, the hand of a brother that Stiles never needed to wish for because he has his best friend. "I want you to be happy, too, okay?" Scott tells him. He holds Stiles' eye for a little while longer, as if letting him know that Stiles is _allowed _to be happy and can stop thinking of him so much. Stiles knows he can't really let himself do that, but he smiles back at him anyway.

As they walk to the locker room, Stiles thinks that it's probably a good thing he won't have to be around Allison as much after they hand in their report.

* * *

Allison turns in the English project along with Stiles, but can't bring herself to look at him.

"Well, I guess we won't be seeing each other as much," she says, staring at the floor with a weak smile.

"Uh- yeah, I guess not," Stiles agrees.

Now, every time Allison does see him in the hall or in class, she fumbles over her sentences, doesn't look him in the eye, and makes excuses to leave. She worries that she's hurting his feelings, but soon she notices he seems just as uncomfortable around her as she is him.

But as she avoids him throughout the next few days, and they skirt around each other, Allison finds herself, to her own surprise, missing him very intensely. She hadn't realized just how much she'd come to depend on his wit and his ease of conversation and his _presence_ to make her feel… content.

At the same time, she also desperately wants to stay away from him because every time she's around him now she feels warm, too warm, and too tingly and too nervous and it's overwhelming.

Allison is in the library, her hand grazing the shelves of books but she doesn't read the titles; her mind is elsewhere.

Sighing, she turns to leave the aisle, but right as she looks up, Stiles rounds the corner and nearly collides into her.

"Oh!" she says, startled.

"Er- hey!" Stiles moves to put his hands on his hips but he's too close to the shelves so he ends up doing this awkward movement until he finally just crosses them. Allison finds this unexplainably cute and she bites her lip, trying to overcome the sudden urge to giggle. It is then when she realizes that this whole thing, avoiding each other and trying not to talk to each other, it is so _silly_.

Allison laughs, closing her eyes and putting her hand to her face, covering her mouth. She shakes her head. "Stiles, what are we doing?"

Stiles looks sort of embarrassed and shrugs. "I don't even know. What's the point in avoiding each other?"

"There _is _no point!" Allison exclaims. "I mean, we're just… we're friends that want to hang out, right?"

"Yeah, yeah!" Stiles says, nodding. "Right. Friends! That is… what we are. We're friends."

Allison feels a little relieved, even though there is a voice in the back of her head that is telling her they are not just friends but she ignores it. Again. "Okay, well, _as _friends- why don't I come over after school or something? I mean, just 'cause we're done with the English project doesn't mean we have to stop seeing each other."

"Uh, I- yeah, sure!" Stiles stutters, his hand rubbing the side of his neck. "Obviously we should do stuff that _friends _do, right?" He says this last bit with a sort of nervous laugh.

"Right! Well, um. I'll see you later, okay?" Allison walks off, not sure if she had just done something really, fatally stupid.

* * *

They plan on watching a movie together, but end up watching reruns of Seinfeld and Stiles actually relaxes, feeling the most comfortable around Allison than he had in over a week.

That is, he relaxes until he actually glances at her. She's laughing, the sound filling the room. Her hands are clasped together and she is holding them to her face. Her hair is down but pushed back and Stiles can see her prominent dimples and her stud earrings. He even notices her freckles on her nose, and-

Okay. This is getting a little uncomfortable again.

Stiles turns away, shifting on the sofa, but he shifts too much and his leg, very gently, presses against Allison's. Freezing, he can't seem to pay attention to the sitcom anymore. Allison is wearing a striped, long sleeved dress and her legs aren't bare, they're in tights, but it's still nerve-wracking.

Allison has quieted now, and they both lean back at the same time; Stiles accidentally elbows her and he turns to apologize.

"Sorry-"

"Oh, it's okay-"

He and Allison both trail off because they're very, very close now, closer than they had been that time when they'd played Call of Duty. Any sort of sense of relaxation had been completely erased, and everything is tense again. Allison's eyes are on his lips, her long, black lashes casting a shadow over her face. Stiles feels his heart palpitating wildly, thudding against his chest. There is a pause, and a sort of hesitant moment when both of them move a little at the same time and then stop.

His eyes close and their lips meet.

The kiss is very soft and unsure. Stiles can't stop thinking about how he's only kissed a girl once on a dare in the fourth grade, which he's sure didn't really count- but those thoughts float away when he feels the palm of Allison's hand cup his face and move to the back of his neck, and without thinking he brings both of his hands up to the sides of her jaw, her skin soft and warm. She deepens the kiss then at his touch, her mouth capturing his upper lip, and he responds with the sort of tentativeness of a novice kisser who learns quickly. After a few more moments of this, Allison pulls away.

Stiles opens his eyes; Allison's are still closed but they flutter open as well, her gaze unfocused. Her breathing is audible, her mouth open. Brushing a lock of hair that had fallen into her face, she brings her eyes up to Stiles', her lips spreading into a slow, uncertain grin. He knows he is smiling already because he can feel it splitting his face and he's sure he must look really stupid but surprisingly he doesn't care.

"Um," Allison breathes out in a kind of laugh.

"Yeah," Stiles says, also speechless.

"That was… that was nice."

"Yeah," he repeats.

"Is that all you can say?" Allison asks, her smile turning into a smirk.

"Well, if I start talking I'm scared I might end up in some sort of nonsensical ramble."

She just chuckles again, and she puts her head above his chest, forehead first and under his chin, so he can smell the pine and lavender scent of her shampoo.

They are quiet for a moment, the only sound in the room the distant noise of the Seinfeld episode that is still playing.

"This is… _so_ weird," Allison says finally.

"Tell me about it," Stiles agrees, shaking his head. "Honestly, I never once thought anything like this would or could happen."

"Yeah, I mean- you're _Stiles-_"

"And you're _Allison_-" Stiles counters this with mock disgust and Allison hits him playfully on the arm.

"I wanted to do that for a while," she admits.

"I did too."

Allison sits up and looks at him. "You did?"

"Uh, you couldn't tell how I was kind of falling all over myself around you?" Stiles asks incredulously. "I just didn't think you would ever think of _me_ that way. And then you were avoiding me and to be honest I was kind of relieved because it made it easier to try to ignore all of it-"

"That's exactly _why _I was avoiding you," Allison says. "I was freaked out." Then she sighs. "Stiles… whatever this is, I want it. I… I still love Scott. I'm always going to. I'm just not sure if I'm _in_ love with him anymore." She pauses and takes a breath. "But… he seemed to have this grand idea that fate would bring us back together."

"Well, he kind of talked to me about that."

"He did?" Allison furrows her brow, alert.

"Yeah," Stiles says, still a little confused about that conversation. "He said he might not feel the same way he did when you broke up, even though he still loves you. He mentioned someone else but I honestly have no idea who-" He breaks off, suddenly thinking about the amount of time Scott and Isaac have been spending together. Blinking, he clears the thought; there is no way that was who Scott had been talking about.

Stiles eyes Allison warily, trying to decipher what she's thinking. She doesn't look troubled necessarily, but bemused. His heart drops when he realizes this news will probably work in the opposite effect of what he wants. Now that she's heard Scott might be moving on, she'll get jealous and want him back.

"I think you should talk to him, I mean- I feel like it sounds like I'm saying all of this so you'd want to be with me instead. But Allison, if you still have any doubt over leaving Scott, you need to tell him. It's true Scott telling me that there might be someone else he has feelings for kind of helped with the crushing _guilt_, but I still feel like a horrible friend. And you're probably going to realize 'hey, fate really _does _exist' and you'll go back to Scott because let's face it, you two are one of those sappy couples found in young adult novels that always find their way back to each other and I'm just _me _and-"

Stiles is cut off sharply by Allison's lips. She grabs him by the shirt collar and kisses him hard, her mouth working with his, her hair grazing his face.

She pulls apart and Stiles says nothing, stunned. Allison glares at him. "I like _you_, Stiles," she says. "Lord knows why and how, but for some crazy reason, throughout these past weeks, it's been you who I've wanted to be around, you who I've wanted to talk to, and you… who I've wanted to kiss." Her expression softens into a smile. "Okay?"

"Uh, I- yeah… 'kay," Stiles stutters, still reeling, unable to form a coherent sentence.

Allison nods slightly, appearing to be satisfied, and leans back into the sofa. "You weren't kidding about that nonsensical ramble."

They watch (but not really watch) Seinfeld for a little while longer, and Stiles doesn't hear a word of it because Allison's hand is on top of his.

* * *

It doesn't take very long for Allison to tell Lydia about everything that had happened. She calls her on the phone that night, and Lydia is less than shocked ("You and Stiles? Oh, please- I totally saw that coming-").

She tells her dad, too, and he isn't glad that it's not Scott, nor is he angry that she's dating someone again, but instead he seems thankful that she has found something (or rather, some_one_) that makes her happy, like Scott once had.

Scott.

Now there is a conversation Allison wants to avoid.

* * *

Stiles decides that he and Allison should tell Scott about, well, _everything_ right away. As much as he is nervous, he knows that hiding this would be worse.

He takes Allison by the hand (her palm is sweaty) and they go up to him and tell him they have to talk.

It's not nearly as bad as Stiles imagined.

Scott, for the most part, seems baffled ("You and _Allison_?) and surprised by not only them but himself. He seems to be a little lost at his own lack of an intense reaction. Though there is a nostalgic sadness in his voice when he tells them he hopes it works out between them, there is also a sort of liberation, as if he had been waiting for something like this to happen ("You guys are both my best friends… I want you to be happy").

So somehow, with their paths changed and their lines all mixed up and interweaving, there is no eruption and no sudden obstacle that keeps the two of them from colliding.

Stiles and Allison intersect and keep intersecting, all parallelism completely and utterly forgotten.

* * *

**A/N: As I worked hard on this fic, reviews would make me very happy. :D Let me know what you think!**


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